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Tuesday, 17 April 2012

Dream House review

Occasionally a film with a troubled
production history will have negative effects on the finished product, take
Alien 3 for example in which director David Fincher relentlessly battled with
producers over the handling of the film (naturally the director’s cut of the
film is vastly superior) and even Blade Runner was affected by its troubled
production resulting in the film being hit financially. Judging by director
producer quarrels it appears that Dream House also fell victim to such
production issues.

Will Atenton (Daniel Craig)
leaves his well paid job to live in a quiet residential area out of the busy,
bustling city of New York in order to spend more time with his children and
write a book (though you’ll probably wonder where any income will come from as
Libby Atenton doesn’t leave the house). Anywho ignoring that rather large hole
the family of four move into this new house only to discover that barely five
years ago a brutal triple murder took place, is the house haunted by its
dreadful past?

Like I have previously mentioned
the film had some quite problematic production issues notably between the
director (Jim Sheridan) and producer James G. Robinson who argued constantly on
set. Obviously the faults of the film can be blamed on both the producers and
those who made the film, but the trailer cut by Morgan Creek Productions, which
revealed the central twist of the film, really added to the actors’ and the
director’s growing sense of frustration with the producers so much that they
refused to do any press releases for the film. Clearly these issues had an effect
on the finished product as Dream House is, to be frank, a nightmarishly bad
film.

There are many, many issues that
are to blame for why the film is as big of a disaster as it actually is;
firstly it wastes the potential of a talented A star cast consisting of Daniel
Craig, Rachel Weisz (Libby Antenton) and Naomi Watts (a neighbour from across
the street). All these are talented actors who have been lumbered with a script
of such poor quality that even the best of performances would fail to get
anything worthwhile out of it. The performances are fine, but the poor quality
of the material they were given gave them an impossible task. However not all
of the blame must be shouldered by writer David Loucka as the producers dirty
hand prints are clearly visible.

That said how much difference
could there be between the studio influenced version and the directors version?
Clearly the influence of the studio did not stop the film from becoming
anything special, but their input is one of the bigger reasons why the film
cannot even come close to be passable entertainment. However there are plenty
of issues that are major problems in which the producers’ influence is limited,
namely the complete lack of tension and also the complete lack of any good
scares. What is causing even further issues is the fact the film has no idea
what it wants to be, is it a horror movie? A psychological thriller? It fails
on both counts as Dream House is about as psychologically disturbing and scary
as a sheep in the Welsh countryside.

There are elements of The Shining
here (for example central premise has some similarities, and also some of the visuals employed by cinematographer Caleb Deschanel are similar to that of Kubrick's film), but the film does nothing more than taking
elements of other horror films and pasting it into their own. The lack of
originality or interesting ideas are evident as the film travels though many of
the genre’s conventions and clichés, and the central plot twist is vastly
similar to that of two very recent films. Add that to the fact that this plot
twist was ludicrously revealed in the trailer makes for a very unsurprising
change in events. Yet that is not the final twist as proceedings become more
convoluted, contrived and implausible as the film drags on, feeling a great deal
longer than its 95 minute running time.

The production issues gave the
film an impossible task, but the complete lack of scares and tension, and a
story that fails to execute any interesting ideas it might have had becomes the
film’s biggest downfall. Jim Sheridan is not an awful director, but here he has
dropped the ball, mainly because producers chucked him one with sharp spikes
on. I may be adding too much emphasis on the producers influence over the
making of film, but the fact that Craig, Weisz and Sheridan want nothing to do
with this film speaks volumes. It’s a catastrophic mess and possibly a career
lowlight for many involved, but at least Craig and Weisz got something out of
it - each other.